Reimagine Work Food For Thought - Leading a Remote Team For The First Time

There’s been a huge amount of global uncertainty over the last couple of months, as COVID-19 is the topic of conversation in every industry. For many organizations, it has meant re-evaluating how we conduct business, including our flexible work policies. For businesses that are lucky enough to be able to continue operations primarily remotely, this has meant transitioning from an in-office team environment to remote collaboration.

Especially if working from home is new for you and your team, the learning curve is daunting. While remote work can be a challenge, there are some strategies you can implement early to make the new arrangement work for everyone. 

Wellbeing matters.

While "focusing on wellbeing" might not be on the top of your list for getting employees motivated and productive as they work remotely, it needs to be. Change is hard for most of us at the best of times, but throw in feelings of isolation, disruptions of social connection opportunities, economic uncertainty, and transitioning to working from home goes from run-of-the-mill stressful to through-the-roof challenging. Before you focus on performance and productivity, focus on employee wellbeing. Check in with how they're doing on an emotional level, ensure they feel reassured and supported, and provide resources they can reach out to if they're struggling (think your EAP if you have one, or free resources if you don't). 

Give them the tools.

Most organizations have not had a huge amount of time to prepare for the current necessity of working from home, but that doesn’t mean leaving employees to fend for themselves. Make sure your team is equipped to be comfortable and productive while working from home by: 

Implementing easy-to-use remote collaboration tools to keep people in contact and to track projects and tasks (Monday, Trello, Asana, and Slack are popular tools that are relatively simple to implement and will help keep folks in the loop).

Ensuring staff have what they need to work from home successfully: ask about their office space, and provide loaner desk chairs, monitors, keyboards, and any ergonomic options that they would have available to them in the office. Nothing is more frustrating and distracting than not having the necessary physical tools to complete their work comfortably.

Overcommunicate. 

Especially for teams that are used to the relative simplicity of quick check-ins throughout the day when working together in person, it can feel awkward to transition to other communication methods. Ensure teams stay connected and expectations are clear by building in more touch points than usual throughout the day. Establish the convention of greeting each team member in the morning, and saying goodbye at the end of the day, just as you would in a regular office. Remember that working from home can feel isolating. Work in time in your own agenda to send a few unscheduled messages throughout the day, asking if team members need any assistance or just to see how they’re doing. 

Provide flexibility. 

Staff members may not just be working from home. They might also be contending with big distractions that wouldn't normally be part of their work day. Children home from school or daycare, or family members or spouses that wouldn’t typically be around might be encroaching on productivity during the typical 9-5 schedule. Be flexible with hours, and demonstrate understanding for the exceptional circumstances we are all navigating, it's a simple thing you can do to reduce stress and boost morale. 

Reimagine Work has supported many other virtual employees, and can help you make sure your team stays healthy (in body and mind) and able to work from home effectively over the coming weeks and months. So, if you need support getting your newly-remote team members up to speed, we can help you with that!